There are few bloggers who aren’t interested in monetizing their blogs. After all, you probably spend a lot of time pouring forth your wisdom and a significant piece of yourself onto those digital pages. And if you’re a WordPlay reader, you also might spend at least a little time working with clip art and photos to make your blog look attractive. I know from experience that all those things take a lot of effort.

Personally, my strategy has been to take these steps: build my blog content and image, thoroughly understand search engine optimization, achieve stable Google rankings and then monetize. That’s why you’ve rarely seen ads on this blog. I’ve experimented briefly with various programs, but I’m just now dipping my toe into the waters of real monetization.

One of the methods I’ve identified for WordPlay is RevResponse, which I already use on my editorial consulting Web site. What is RevResponse? It’s a classy, painless way to be paid for generating leads for a variety of quality publications, white papers, etc. And RevResponse actually adds value to your blog by providing free information to your readers. I particularly like that aspect, because WordPlay is all about enhancing content.

RevResponse is unique because it helps you promote their information sources by creating a custom mini-site with graphics that match your blog or Web site. In my case, they created the site to match my business Web site. (Click the image to the right to see a live sample page.) I can link to the mini-site in any way I want, which gives me the flexibility to place links to it where they fit best. RevResponse helps out in this respect by offering a Promotion Wizard that lets you create graphic ads that rotate links to publications relevant to your niche. Or you can create your own text links. You can see an example of links I created if you look in the upper left corner of WordPlay’s sidebar.

Another great thing about the program is the quality of the products; they represent only the cream of the crop. For example, you can get paid to refer people to Website Magazine, which is free for subscribers. As one of their subscribers, I can vouch for its quality. I’ve learned a lot from reading it. There also are many other publications, such as eWeek, a guide to e-commerce technology, and the Vulnerability Management e-book, which helps you understand how to protect your Web properties in the sometimes hostile world of the Internet. (This is a subject close to my heart, since I just discovered there was cross-site scripting, also known as XSS or malicious code, in all four of the free WordPress templates I use for my blogs. I learned to spot the code and remove it, and I highly recommend that you educate yourself so you can do the same.)

The only caveat about working with RevResponse is that your blog or Web site must qualify for the program. To do so, you have to have an audience that would be interested in what they have to offer. To see if you qualify, click on this page and look at the sidebar to determine whether the information categories fit your blog or Web site. If it looks like they might be a good fit for RevResponse, click here to apply.

If you apply and your blog or Web site isn’t appropriate, RevResponse let you know! But that’s a good thing. Even though the time needed to implement the program is fairly minimal, you don’t want to to spend any time at all if it’s not going to produce revenue. And if you are accepted into the program, you’ll be glad they’re a little picky. That means the other affiliates in the network will be quality Web properties like yours, rather than spam blogs or sites.

See RevResponse in action

Looking for other opportunities to make money online? Mike Stokes’ magnetic sponsoring might be just what you’ve been looking for. You’ll also find a wealth of information about online marketing for small business at Nick Thacker’s blog that covers social media marketing, small business success, and marketing tips and advice. And if you’re looking for professional search engine optimization software tools and services to improve your search engine rankings, check out Trendmetrix, a quality SEO company.

You might also be interested in these related articles:

• Keyword Analysis 101
• Search Engine Optimization 101

Image via Wikipedia

The title of this post is actually a misnomer. Search engine optimization (SEO) — the art and science of getting your site or blog ranked in search engines — can’t be covered in one post.

Those who truly seek to understand and implement SEO know it takes study, a time investment and even some experimentation to achieve good results. It also helps if you can follow the advice of someone who has already achieved that success. Actually, that can make all the difference in the world.

When I began this blog, I had no idea what I was doing. I made every mistake in the book, SEO-wise. And I thought I didn’t care whether I got traffic, because I created WordPlay as a showcase for my editorial consulting business. I just wanted a blog that looked somewhat pretty and had interesting content that I could link to my company Web site. But then I made a few tweaks that brought me more traffic. Before long I was hooked on hits.

I made those traffic-drawing tweaks because of a kind soul who actively prodded me to do so: Grizzly Brears of Make Money Online for Beginners. As I followed his advice, I watched my hits go up and my whole online experience changed. Now I have numerous blogs that rank well for popular keywords I never thought I could achieve rankings for.

There’s a lot to be said for watching your hits grow; I highly recommend it for increasing your self-esteem. To achieve those results, however, I had to begin at the beginning. And it took some work; I won’t kid you about that. For me, most of the work was between my ears. I needed to change my thinking in order to change my results. That led me to read everything Grizzly had to say on SEO. Now I put myself in the “doing quite well, but still learning” category. I think Grizzly might say he’s still learning in some areas, too, because things change all the time online. The difference is, while he’s learning, he’s cashing AdSense checks in excess of $11,000 a month.

As I said before, you can’t cover everything needed to achieve Grizzly-sized online success in one post. But you can begin at the beginning and work toward that goal. To do so, I recommend you start with Grizzly’s Search Engine Optimization Basics post and then read as much of his blog as you can. I can almost guarantee your head will hurt and you’ll get confused, but keep going. Many of your questions will be answered in subsequent posts or in the comments fields.

After everything I’ve just written, you might be thinking, why write an entire post on SEO and not give one bit of SEO information? What a cheat! Well, not really. It’s not my niche to teach SEO, yet I know it is of great concern to my readers. The best favor I could do is to refer you to someone who can give you exactly what you need.

Friends of Grizzly and WordPlay:

• Richard from Philippines Nursing School
• Simonne from EZMoneyOn.Net

You might also be interested in these related posts on WordPlay:

• Keyword Analysis 101
• Easy Blog Monetization